Dog Food
by Gerard Cypriako
Summary: Mordecai takes part on Georgia's High Museum of Art Exhibiton Fair and ventures in the risky world of art, where no one is wrong and nothing goes too far. To some people. Would he get in trouble if he made arte with a living being?
1. YOU

**_No credit is taken for the characters in this story; that is reserved to the owners of the show_**

"Not getting into this game, Rigby." Mordecai shook his head in frustration. "I'm sorry."

"D'awgh, but why?"

The duo had woken up an hour earlier to get a chance to try the new videogame they purchased the day prior before they had to attend their jobs; it had just been a couple of weeks since its release, and it had garnered loads of buzz, both in the gamer community and the News Media blog-shpere, even before it came out. It was a very hyped-up product, having been the first one to come out of a small, relatively new developer. It had been presented for the first time at an Electronic Entertainment event Rigby and Mordecai attended, by its creative director, a woman named Marissa, who did not introduce 'Jute for Everyone' nor she talked about her game at all, but instead used her time on the spotlight to deliver a speech about the trends several modern games follow and why most gamers don't bother to complete story-based videogames. The lecture bored several guests, including Mordecai, to tears. His pal payed close attention, nevertheless.

Mordecai wasn't looking forward to Marissa's creation. He knew the game was viewed and appreciated by hardcore players as an anomaly, and that outside of that, it didn't do anything for people who were tired of you-who shmucks preaching their thoughts through ungodly heartless products. Rigby seemed oblivious to Jute for Everyone's reputation and was excited to get it, so he didn't make any comments about it until they began playing:

"It's not clicking with me." the bird explained himself. "It's too experimental, and it has no clear main objectives; there are no obstacles or enemies to beat. This shouldn't even be a co-op game; you could play perfectly without me."

"And just because it lacks those things, does it make it a bad game?" his friend argued. "It was getting really fun!"

A moment of silence interrupted the exchange of opinions, during which Mordecai tried to locate Rigby's position in the map they were working on. When done, he continued talking:

"This is a game you could play forever. There's not a final boss to tell you where's the end." the jay remarked. The raccoon threw away his controller.

"Well, yeah, but..."

"I thought you liked those!"

Rigby grunted as he began his sentence from the start:

"Well, yeah, but this game is about a different perspective on how we enjoy our videogames in the present" Rigby clenched his fists and pulled them closer to his chest, as if he adopted an initial hand-in-hand combat position. "The chick who came up with this project has stated so. She wanted to share her own approach to the main focus of several modern videogames, which is the characters and the plots. This is not about the captivating story or deep characters, at least from the get go. She thinks no story is more fascinating than the one we come up with ourselves, so she thought gamers'd be enthralled by what their own imaginations could do on a TV screen."

Mordecai couldn't be more perplexed.

"And this is what maturity has done to you."

"Maybe." Rigby answered as he cogitated what Mordecai had told him. "I just memorised every word of her speech when she showed the game at that Expo. It's exactly what she says; look it up."

"You've been really weird since you visited that house."

Rigby went 'UJGH' and stood up, to make sure the bluejay would pay attention:

"It's not that, dude. I'm trying to describe you a work of art."

"Art? Yeah, sure."

To Jute for Everyone's credit, the first levels were pretty decent. Short, to the point, perhaps a little too easy, like an Internet game you'd play on a PC. Their fashion and the tasks they had to complete to move on to the next one were remeniscent of the retro games he loved playing with Rigby. And yes, it was divided by levels as a nod to those gems. Very nice, indeed. But the groan-worthy parts made their presence when they got to Level 20, where they were assigned a character each one. And the game made a horrible twist: the missions were non-sensical, the colours suddenly brightened and became a nuisance, all the characters they encountered were obnoxious, the cheerful music from past levels went silent, and if they didn't reach their target or accomplish their goal within the time limit, they unexplicably died and had to start over.

"It has some really likeable parts" stated the bluejay "but I wish it had more of those instead of moments where my character just wanders around aimlessly along with scenarios played over and over again, just with different characters and layouts."

Art, he repeated.

He appreciated videogames as much as his partner did, but he couldn't be serious this time. Mordecai left his controller on the floor, stood up and started walking away towards the entrance of the house.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"I remembered I had important stuff to do besides taking care of the snack bar today. I'm gonna leave early" he added as he opened the door and went through it "you can stay here with your art-UGH?!"

The bluejay almost slipped with some flyers that were left in front of the door. He picked up one.

"Yo, what is this?"

"What happened, Mordecai?" Rigby inquired from inside the house, as he had already started a new game.

"Aww, it's an ad for that Art Exhibition Fair they're doing in the park." His eyes opened wide as he realised:

"I forgot! Today we must set up some space to mount the galleries from the exhibition in the park!"

"Oh...Seriously?"

"Yeah! C'mon, dude. We've got no time to lose"

"Well..." Rigby turned the TV off.

* * *

The two were rushing to the central zone of the park, a spot very far away from their usual meeting point, the outside of the house; they didn't find anyone there, so they just kept searching for a trace of their co-workers. From the middle of the field, they could see everything in their surroundings more easily. North...East...South...Benson!

...

Their boss was standing next to an exaggeratedly leafy tree that doubled this height, scribbling on a notepad. A pair of gardener scissors rested against the tree's roots, many of which stuck out of the ground. Mordecai was the first to talk once him and Rigby had reached him:

"Benson, why are you here? We thought you were outside Pops' house. Couldn't find you anywhere!"

"And I was heading over there..." Benson explained. His employees looked fatigued. Form what he could tell, the two had been running, and Mordecai sounded a little nervous. Perhaps they had some urgency he wasn't aware of.

"Where are the others?" the bird asked, after panting for ten straight seconds.

"Are we really that late to the set up of the Art Exhibition?" his buddy seemed worried, too. Benson was able to sort out what was happening. He spoke:

"The exhibition opens tomorrow. Pops took everyone else for a ride; they went to run some errands on the city."

"Tomorrow?"

Both friends exchanged looks.

"You must've read that wrong." Rigs vouched, looking right into Mordo's eyes.

"Really wrong." Mordecai stiffly jerked his head "But still: if the gallery opens tomorrow, why not begin to prepare it now?"

"Because people are still submitting pieces of their work to the High Art Museum. The Fair will grant access to the public on 12 a.m."

That explains it.

Sounds logical.

"And well" said Benson " I was going to assign you an improptu activity due to the circumstances..."

That did not sound promising at all.

"...but since you're here, you can help by pruning this tree."

He handed Mordecai the scissors. The latter held them on his wings, gave them a beffudled look and opened his beak to mouth:

"Why?"

"Is there anything you might have problems with?" Benson wanted to know.

"No, I mean; you mentioned something about circumstances..."

"Uh, no. It's just that I want everything in the park to be presentable."

"Are you sure we must do this? Nothing more challenging or more exhaustive?" the bluejay inquired once again, still doubtful.

"Yeah. Besides, there isn't another single tree in this zone." Rigby was also in Mordecai's position.

"It's the only one. Make sure to make it stand out more than it already does." were the last instructions the gumball machine gave the duo before sodding off.

* * *

"Can you believe it?" Rigby snapped out. He, being the tiny one, was standing on top of the strongest branch, getting rid of the driest, most attacked by caterpillars, ugliest looking leaves. He passed the tool to his partner, but he didn't reply.

"Mordecai?"

"Huh?"

"You realise we wouldn't be doing this if you hadn't misread that flyer?" Rigby sounded a little brassed off. With him, everything's usually little.

Mordo was standing on the ground, awaiting for his turn to use the scissors.

"Yeah..." he mumbled and started pruning.

"Are you fully aware of what I'm telling you and what it...?"

"Of course, dude, but... I was just thinking and not giving much importance to whatever we could be doing other than this."

"Oh, I see."

"I was thinking about submitting a portrait for the Art Exhibition Fair."

Rigby almost lost his balance from the abrupt pause he made. Mordecai's alert mode activated, automatically anticipating the worst scenario he could, which involved catching the raccoon while holding a sharp object in his wings. None of that happened. Rigby regained his position.

"Man...a portrait? I thought you said you quit that stuff like, perenially after the incident with the painting of Benson."

"I said I would leave my art practices on an indefinite hiatus..." the bird put down the pruning instrument to rest his back on the tree's rough bark to adopt a more comfortable position for a conversation "Perenially...Are you listening to what you're saying?"

"But still, what YOU'RE saying is legit? You really wanna go there?" Rigby quickly climbed down to be face to face with Mordecai. "You do want to do a painting for the hammy Fair?"

"Yeah, it doesn't have to be a painting, but that's what I want it to be."

"You said you went to art school and everything you did ended up being a disaster."

"Hold on. That is true, but it didn't end there." He took a moment to breathe in:

"After all the disarray the Benson portrait caused and after everything worked out..."

"Very lucky of us." Rigby interrupted.

"Everything worked out" Mordecai insisted "That inspired me to dig deeper into what art is."

"And?" the coon stretched the pronounciation of the vowel on that one.

"Well, I did research. I met people. They me showed paintings, sculptures, installations and artists I had never heard about. And knowledge came from a very different source."

"Appreciation."

"Never have you ever used that word more accurately."

"Knew what the key word was when you talked about how you got into art. So... You know a lot of that, don't you?"

"Well, I've been more active as a non-official art curator, to tell you the truth. I haven't painted since the Benson portrait incident."

Rigby squinted his eyes.

"But I'm not afraid to do so anymore. I could blame art school for teaching and evaluating art from a strictly technical point of view, but even that was before we went through so many crazy ventures. This will be easy."

"Huh. Great" Rigby let out in satisfaction. He distractedly directed his eyes towards the gardener scissors, which had been tossed and let alone. A concern materialised in his brain:

"What about that tree?"

Mordecai felt all his new found energy and motivation cut and flee from him as the sensation in the nerves from his back brusquely reminded him of what was he resting against. Bark of sweet, sweet tree.

"Errmmmmmghhmhh...Uhhhhh..."

"It's okay as it is now?" Rigs asked.

"I haven't even touched it with the scissors in my power."

"But you _have._ "

"Let's just go."

.


	2. ARE

Brushes. At least five of them would be enough. Colours? That'd depend: what did he want to paint? Nah, that was the last aspect to worry about. Where would he paint? The attic would be too asphyxiating. What about the empty room across the hall from the restroom? Sure, why not? The silence there was always more comforting and peaceful than anywhere else in the house, and very, very soothing compared to the quietness of the attic that just sounded like death.

Technique? Acrylics, seeing that oil would take too long to dry. And he was technically a beginner. He had only drawn on paper before.

Mordecai was organising his agenda of activities for that afternoon, so he could start the painting soon enough to finish it before he missed the deadline. He had a day. Less. All he didn't have was a surface to paint on, but when all his co-workers arrived from town, he would ask Pops if there was a virgin, white frame he could work with anywhere in the house. There should be, and the lollipop should know.

And if Rigby didn't make much noise delighting in his beloved abstract videogame, everything should go as planned. However, there was still one assignment, one mission he had left on hold, that was buzzing in his head as if it echoed 'You're not finished yet!'. It was the tree he and Rigby had given some touches earlier that day; just when they returned to Pops' home, they told Benson, as soon as they found him there, to check out their progress. He certainly wasn't happy, as the tree had been left unfinished, and he notified the two of that, but for some reason, he ordered they continued the next day, along with their surprise task for the installation of the screens and frames of the Art Exhibition Fair that'd take place in the park.

Mordecai told Benson about his plans on submitting something to the Georgia's High Museum of Art so he could show it publicly on the fair. Benson agreed and gave him his approval. "As long as it doesn't interfere with your other responsabilities." he remembered were the words his boss told him.

...

"Hey, Pops! Um...do you think you have an empty frame I could use [hgn] to paint on?"

"Of course, Mordecai! I can show you where it is. It has been here for a loooooong time now. Could I ask you why should you be looking for it?"

"It's for tomorrow's Art Fair; I decided I would bring artwork of my own"

"Splendid! Well, I do have one I remember being on the attic."

"Great! And um...is there only one?"

"You need more than one? There must be! No one has painted in this house in a while..."

...

"Ready-at last" Mordecai let out a sigh of relief once he found himself sat in front of Pops' sought-after frame (which had been put on an easel, also courtesy of Pops) in the newly set up studio he made from the previously empty room, with a large wooden case that contained oils, pastels, acrylics, sixteen different brushes, seven drawing pencils, a palette knife, a bloc with sheets suitable for any techinque, and a grey, kneaded eraser-or at least that's what the tag said-lying on the floor, ready to be opened for the first time. He had purchased it soon after he regained interest in plastic arts, but he had never used anything that came inside before; therefore it was still untouched, but well preserved.

"Great."

It was seven in the afternoon.

With everything prepared before-hand, what was the next step?

"Inspiration."

The blue bird exited his new studio and walked to the computer room. Once it was turned on, he opened three tabs, all on Image searchers.

Names.

J-E-N-N-Y

Loads of pictures popped up on the first tab, and he began scrolling down. Several appealing ideas, but the style was propably too hard for a beginner like him. Still, he now had on mind what he was going to do: he would draw a body.

"RIIIIIIIIEG-BYyyy." Mordecai called his pal, who was probably downstairs. If he was, he wasn't making much noise. Wherever he was, he probably was too far to have listened to him, so he tried again:

"RIIIIIIIIG-BYYYYYY." he raised his voice even more, without moving from his seat.

No response. Strange.

Would he have to look for him? What could the raccoon be doing? He expected him to be busy with his overly atmospheric videogame.

"RIIIIIGBYYYYYYY." Mordecai proceeded to yell, just to hear footsteps approaching the door. It was the raccoon.

Mordo expected him to show up mildly annoyed, but Rigby just walked in with his eyes wide open, and asked meekly: "What?"

"Where were you?" the jay demanded.

"I was in our room." he replied a little more agressively.

"Could you stand right there and model for me a little bit?"

Rigby raised an eyebrow, in beffudlement.

"You're gonna be in the portrait, dude!" the bird declared raising his wings, with an excited tone in his voice.

"Oh. Why do you need me here?"

"Just stand over there until your face has been captured in my brain." Mordecai said.

"Shouldn't it have already? You literally see me everyday."

"If you don't wanna do this, you can just take a picture of yourself. The point is you're gonna be featured in my painting for the Art Fair, and I want to make it look sort of realistic."

"What were you looking at?" Rigby directed his eyes at the computer screen, which displayed paintings on the tab in which Mordo had typed 'Jenny Saville artwork' on the Image search.

"This is where I got some inspiration, man. By checking out some of other people's work I can get ideas of what I'm gonna paint."

The bluejay scrolled down even more as he continued to talk:

"Jenny Saville. One of the living heavy-weights in contemporary art."

What the woman named Jenny Saville seemed to paint were gritty, crude representations of photo-realistic bodies. Pink, red and grey bodies. Naked women, for the most part.

Rigby examinated one portrait in particular: it was a female, and she was pushing herself against the canvas, as if it were a transparent glass panel. Then he focused on another one: this time it was about three overlapped, nude women

"There's a lot of Freud in her what she does, and most of the time it's fantastic. Just looking at these pictures I thought of painting you!"

But his friend was far from fully understanding what fascinated him so much about those paintings.

"Sigmund Freud?"

"Lucian Freud. But they were related"

Rigby went silent, and kept staring at an image of a naked, transexual tattoed man.

"And the most amazing part is that most of these are monumental. That one for example, is as big as our couch, if we had three of them and they were piled one on top of another"

"Sweet..."

Ultimately the raccoon was able to pull his eyes away from the screen. It wasn't easy; what he witnessed was, simply put, disgusting, but its rawness had piqued his curiosity. In fact, it lead to him posing a question of significant importance:

"You're not going to paint me like that, are you?"

"No!" Mordecai burst out laughing.

The mental image of that was just hilarious. Rigby, recumbent on the living room's sofa, in a typical Freud-like pose. Dog included. That'd be funny. But enough with the distractions.

"No. I'm just checking these photos out to see what sticks with me the most."

Not only did Rigby exhale in relief having been put past the risk zone, but his face brightened:

"Man, you know what would kick ass? Me, but like tall and muscular, lifting a monster truck – no – two monster trucks! Wait…" he turned on his back "…flipping over two monster trucks."  
"Erhm, I already decided what the portrait is going to be." Mordecai hoped not to disappoint the coon.

"Oh, it's just a portrait?" Rigby asked in a tame voice.

"I can't add much to it 'cause of the deadline, so I'm sticking to just…that."

"So, not even one truck? 'Cause the Grave Digger type is both badass and easy to do, you know…It doesn't have to be as complex anyway, it's – um – yeah it doesn't have to be exact."

"What I'm thinking is that you will be looking into" Mordo rolled in his chair towards Rigby "the spectator's eyes, and you'll be covered in white paint while holding a cup that's dripping white paint."

Rigby internally licked his front teeth.

"And you're gonna look like you regret it." added the jay. But Rigby frowned slightly:

"That's your best idea? That's what you want? 'Cause I'm not sure if I'm cool with that."

"But why not?"

"Well, if it doesn't look too much like me, I'm all for it."

"Is there an issue if it looks like you?"

"Well, yeah! What if someone recognises me? They're gonna think it's weird." he said, shrugging and peeking at the monitor's screen. "You painted Benson pretty well. It was not exactly him, but you could see him when you saw the painting." Rigby scratched his neck.

"So your problem is how I want to paint you?" Mordecai sounded annoyed.

"True, but why does it have to be like that? Why can't I decide how I want to be represented?"

The jay grunted.

"Why you gotta make this hard, dude?"

"Why don't you paint yourself?"

"In all honesty, you're easier to draw."

Rigby raised his eyebrows quickly and left his eyes bulging.

"But fine, you're right. I will…alright, I can't change the concept because I'm running out of time, but let me paint it like I'm telling you. If you don't like it, I don't turn it in for the fair. Deal?" Mordecai clenched his wing awaiting for his friend to agree.

Rigby bumped his fist to the wing.

"Deal."

"Should I leave you?"

Mordecai opened a tube of brown acrylic paint.

"Mmm...yeah. Thanks."

"On it." Rigby said, and descended the stairs muttering "I'm running out of time…Couldn't he choose a tree to paint? Everyone can do a tree. Trees are like, the thing everyone does on psychological tests. What, Pops? Uh, no, it was just me and Mordecai talking. I can't tell. He seems out of his zone. There are whatever number of reasons one can get out if their zone. It's weird. I'm still kinda salty over the whole thing. Figured I'd just play alone."

Mordecai couldn't hear everything by pressing his ear to the floor, but he made sure to listen every word until Rigby had stopped.

Better not mess this up, then.

* * *

When nine at the afternoon hit, Mordecai was surprised by how much he had progressed. The part that was not ready were the hands, so he quickly went down to find Rigby's.

"Dude can I take a look at your hands real quick? I'm almost done!"

"Really?" said Rigby, who was nibbling a slice of lemon bread at the kitchen table. "Can I look at it?"

The two went where the painting was, and Rigby's reaction went:

"Hey…that's not what I expected!"

The portrait of him covered all his features in proportion to a tee. The resemblance was there.

He appeared to have spilled white paint over him, as the artist said, and he was looking back at his real self with an irritated face.

He chuckled.

"The background is like my fur." he pointed at a corner that blended the browns and the black in a gradient. "That is so cool! You really went all out."

"Heh, thanks." Mordo smiled.

"I guess you only need me to do this and you're off." Rigby cupped his right paw and rested the left paw naturally against his hip.

"Yes, yes, yes! Just wait, wait, wait!" Mordecai felt on the computer's desktop to find a loose paper, and when he did, he went for a pencil, without getting his sight off the hands.

"Three…four…and the other…hmm…hmm, hmm." The jay dropped the pencil and raised the thumb feather at his collaborator.

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm." Rigby said as well, assuming his neutral posture and walking out of the room while sharing a look with Mordecai.

"See you tomorrow, man. Keep that up. It's great."

"You don't have an issue with people recognising you if I turn it in?"

"Sure, but you worked hard on it and if you're proud of it, you do you."

"Cool, man! Thanks, again."


End file.
